Over the weekend i went out to Nakuru to meet one Police Superintendent who has discovered what has been deposited in him. He is going out of his way to use it. Superintendent Gitahi Kanyeki is in charge of Molo District Administration Police unit, a district that suffered greatly from the post election violence that gripped Kenya two years ago. And with the government's initiation of operation 'rudi nyumbani,' which was a process that was meant to resettle the displaced, Superintendent Kanyeki initiated his peace building exercise to get the warring groups to live with each other without any more trouble. He took it upon himself to drive the peace and reconciliation initiative in his region of service. He has been going around in public meetings, especially youth meetings to preach peace and reconciliation. Being a police officer, he was privileged to get some of the gross pictures of victims of the violence, and has been using them in PowerPoint presentations to get the message across right and clear.
After viewing some of those pictures on his computer, i still cant get the images of the poor young people i saw lying lifeless with their throats slit. That was gross!He says after having his audience view the images, he then possess the question; would you like us to go back there? Do you think what we did was worth the while? Do you now understand why its important to live in peace with everyone? And he says the answer is always a quiet no, no yes and so on. He says even though the perpetrators of the violence have not been confident enough to confess their crime for fear of being prosecuted, he has seen a great improvement and and slowly starting to reap fruits of his efforts. Officer Kanyeki has also incorporated members of his stuff in the initiative, who he says have responded well. They are all running across the district and neighbouring districts to preach peace, reconciliation and integrity in society.
While listening to him at one of the youth workshops, i got thinking, what if all of us gave ourselves to this course! What if we all became agents of change and took the bulls by its horns! Would there be anyone our evil leaders would find to manipulate to reach their selfish ends?! Wouldn't our leaders, who have always been the preachers of hate and division also fall suit of this?! I have always believed in the cliche' - if you cant beat them join them. They would not be able to beat us to this game, and so they would be forced to join the common citizen and preach peace with us. Kenya would indeed be the ONE Kenya that we all pray, fast and long for. Using our national flag, Kanyeki brings his message of peace so easily yet deeply to us. As he digs back into our history and the events that led Kenya into becoming a republic, the various people from various tribes who put their lives on line for the freedom of this country. Even to the point of putting our flag together in such a way that would always remind us of our past, present and where we want to be in future. I was left with this one expression - Wow!!!And you know he does all this in his full uniform! He is proud to be where he is and to do what he is doing for his homeland Kenya. he concludes his message with this words, " let us gang together to guard our homeland Kenya. Repent and seek cleansing! Let us all head together to heaven. And if you are there and you don't want to join us, then we are sorry but we have to tell you that you are headed for hell and all by yourself."
This are the heroes we should be preaching about. People who are causing positive change in our society. Not troublemakers in the name of political leaders who break us in pieces by inciting us against each other.
Superintendent Kanyeki made my weekend!
Bravo superintendent! I salute you! Your labour is not in vain!
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